DALLAS – Gary Bett-man won’t exactly say that Ziggy Palffy will go to the Rangers for warm bodies over the commissioner’s dead one. But if it’s any consolation to remaining fans of the Islanders, all of whom at this point are required to have been born yesterday, Bettman was not.

He understands that when Palffy goes to the hated Rangers, the last fan out of the Coliseum turns out the lights. So, trust us, Palffy will wind up with the Kings, Sharks, Blackhawks, anywhere but at Madison Square Garden, whatever little consolation that may bring. It has taken two dumb owners, Steve Gluckstern and Howard Milstein, to unscrew every light bulb. Wherever their only drawing card winds up, the franchise will remain illuminated only by dimmers.

As the bottom drops outs of the latest of increasingly vicious rebuilding cycles, the status quo remains. The Islanders can’t move forward without being guaranteed a new arena. Viable offers from owners who might have a better chance of getting it built are not forthcoming. And unless Gluckstern and Milstein can walk away with more than just their investment back, they aren’t selling, anyway.

“They would still like to own the team,” the new CEO, John Sanders, said yesterday. So out with their dirty bathwater will go Baby Ziggy, probably for $2 million, a No. 1 draft choice, prospects and, likely, little that can help the Islanders win even the 24 games they did this season.

“It has to be a good hockey trade,” said NHL operations director Colin Campbell, who approved the responsible deal that sent Trevor Linden to Montreal for a No. 1 pick and will put the checkmark to the more critical one for Palffy. Campbell refused to distinguish between trades good for the present and future, or speculate on any required combination. “Once it comes across the table, we’ll look at it,” he said.

Hard, we hope, if there is nothing in it to stabilize the Islanders for the next few seasons. Pathetic as it sounds, there is a big difference between winning 25 games and 15.

“I don’t think it’s impossible to have a team that is better than last year’s,” argued Sanders. Do not hold your breath or place in the ticket line. How do the Islanders, at this point, expect anybody to show up?

“That’s a very fair question,” said Sanders. “That is our challenge here. I would be the first to admit that there have been a variety of mistakes made. All we can try to do is explain what we’re doing and why we’re doing it in the hopes that we will get better and better over time.”

Over time? Time for what? Time to allow politicians to stall a commitment so as to keep themselves positively positioned to the maximum number of voters? Time for Eric Brewer to develop to a point where he becomes too expensive for a weak and unsupported team to retain?

The logic is that a payroll of $26 million couldn’t make the playoffs last year, so the Islanders can lose more cheaply for $15 million. Next season, at least the scoreboard will be secured, the training-camp site set, the phone number listed. CEO David Seldin, who could make sand walk away from Jones Beach, is out of the picture, replaced by Sanders, who gets good early reviews from the people who work with him.

But better customer relations will help only marginally if the product on the ice is likely to be worse. Meanwhile, more bullets will be removed from any gun the Islanders hold to the county’s head. Before they are used up, decency demands it be offered to the fans to put them out of their misery.

“In the absence of anybody who is willing to buy this franchise under current circumstances, we have to go through a balancing act of making sure that losses aren’t so severe that ownership doesn’t give up,” Bettman said.

Gluckstern has already given up on the only thing that’s going to save the Islanders: A good team.

An exciting Islander team would help an arena get done, the way the Eric Lindros deal helped sell suites in Philadelphia, the way Tom Hicks was willing to operate the Stars at a deficit to sell a new major league sport and promote the building of a new cash cow for him and his team.

While the Stars compete in the Stanley Cup Finals, the shovel is in the ground here. It is on Long Island, too, for a sad and opposite reason.